Justice rallies support for proposed income tax cuts at Tamarack

Jan. 26—Following a successful tour of the state to sway West Virginia voters against Amendment 2 in the 2022 General Election, Gov. Jim Justice is once again taking to the road to garner support for his plan to cut personal income taxes.

During a town hall meeting Thursday at Tamarack in Beckley, Justice, accompanied by his pet sidekick, Babydog, spoke to a packed room of more than 100 people about the benefits his plan would bring to the people of West Virginia and the state as a whole.

"We have a real opportunity right now to cut the personal income tax and cut it by 50 percent," Justice told the town hall crowd. "We can do that without cutting services. In fact, we can grow services. And we have vetted the numbers until we are blue-flat green."

After speaking for roughly 15 minutes, Justice spent the next 50 minutes fielding questions from the dozens in attendance.

Some attendees expressed concern that a cut to their personal income tax now would lead to increases on other taxes, like real estate, somewhere down the line.

Others asked how they could be assured that the state could sustain such a tax cut in the years to come.

While recognizing these concerns, Justice's statements in response suggested that his plan to cut personal income taxes would have only positive effects for the state.

Justice has proposed a 50 percent cut in personal income tax over three years while also setting aside $700 million to establish a Personal Income Tax Reserve Fund.

If passed, the change in personal income tax would start with a 30 percent reduction in January 2023, and another 10 percent reduction in the following two years.

Unlike Amendment 2, the choice to enact Justice's tax plan is not in the hands of voters but with West Virginia legislators.

While Justice is still receiving pushback from the Senate, the House of Delegates overwhelmingly passed the bill representing the tax cut this week.

Despite expressing frustration with senators for not having already passed his tax cut bill, Justice said he was not holding the town halls tell people to call their senators because he's been told the Senate is in favor of his plan.

"... They say that they're all on board and this is what they want to do, too," Justice said, "... but they say 'but we want to be sure. We don't want to end up like Kansas.'"

Senate President Craig Blair told MetroNew that Senate is doing its due diligence before making a move on Justice's proposed tax cut plan.

"If we're going to cut taxes, we're going to cut taxes in such a way that we don't have to come back and increase that tax that we cut on the people of West Virginia," Blair said in a MetroNews article Thursday.

As someone who came into office in the midst of massive statewide budget cuts, Justice said he would never propose a plan that would undercut the successes that have resulted in over $1 billion in surplus for 2022.

"Do you honestly think that I would walk in the door and work like a crazy man every day to try to make things better, and it worked, and then risk throwing it all away?" Justice said. "There's no way. No humanly way. This is as conservative as conservative can possibly be."

He added that his plan would also put West Virginia on a path to eliminate the state's income tax, which Justice said would lead to population growth as well as keep more West Virginians from leaving the state.

West Virginia's personal income tax rates range from 3 percent on taxable income under $10,000 to 6.5 percent on income over $60,000, according to the Associated Press

Neighboring Ohio's personal income tax rate ranges from about 2.8 percent to 3.99 percent. Kentucky has a flat individual income tax of 5 percent. The AP further reported that 15 states have a higher tax bracket than West Virginia and eight states have no personal income tax.

Beckley resident Arran Adams, 56, said he appreciated Justice's honesty about his tax plan and felt he was "on the right track."

"I think West Virginia is similar to where my family is from in Maine," Adams said. "They face the same thing where the young people are leaving because there are no opportunities and I think this is the right direction for the state. And as (Justice) said, we're next to two-thirds of the population and if you provide them opportunities, then they will come ... it makes sense. A number of states who don't have personal taxes, it's to their benefit."

When asked whether he thought the state could sustain a loss of the revenues generated from the personal income tax, Adams said he trusted that Justice knew what he was doing.

"With anything, if you do enough research and you look at the data — especially the fact that they ran it against zero growth and came up with these numbers. It sounds like they're doing their due diligence, so it makes sense to me," he said.

Jerry and Connie Lilly, who are both retired and live in Grandview, said they didn't think the tax cut would be too much to their benefit, but they hoped it would be for their children and grandchildren.

"It's gonna be a huge draw for West Virginia," Connie Lilly said. "West Virginia has lost so many people. So many people, even my age — when we graduated school, so many of them left and went to Charlotte and Rock Hill. We need some way to get people back here, and I think that that's the avenue."

In terms of any negative impact from the tax cuts, which Justice assured everyone does not exist, Jerry Lilly said they'll just have to trust him.

"There's no way of us knowing," he said. "We just have to trust."

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com